Not Yet a Vet…dot net

I played with hearts today.  I suppose “played” is a relative term.  I was the designated heart-handler in pathology lab this morning because no one else wanted to glove up and manipulate the assorted specimens that may or may not be older than most of the people in my class.  Hey, classic clinical presentation of certain cardiac diseases only comes around once in a while.  When you find that special heart with a perfect example of endocardiosis or a wonderful demonstration of chronic passive congestion of the liver due to right heart failure, you hang on to those samples.

Anyway, as the designated heart-handler, I was responsible for piecing together hearts cut in various ways to best demonstrate their pathology.  The exercise was quite interesting but the smell was overwhelming at times.  It usually takes a LOT of different things working together to make me feel nauseous, but these old hearts seemed to strike the perfect chord in my nose that, in turn, tickled my gag reflex.  I was actually pretty amazed that I made it through the whole lab.  It was the cat hearts that made me push through.  They didn’t smell and I was distracted from my bad feelings by how small they were!  I can’t believe that my 12 pound cat has such a tiny structure keeping him alive.

I’ve said before how amazed I am that the body just works. It shouldn’t work.  There are way too many integrated systems that all need to function at a certain level ALL the time.  There are way too many places for things to go wrong.  I suppose I really do heart veterinary school even after all the exams and stress and nauseating smells.  I like seeing everything come together, and I like seeing ways the body fails.  You have to know your opponent before you can begin to fight.  And I plan on saving a lot of lives someday.